Requirements imposed on companies by the various national exchanges that they must meet in order to be part of the trading activity on that particular exchange. Listing requirements vary between the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, etc., but in all cases the company's stock must meet a minimum share price, the company must possess a minimum asset value, there must be minimum number of shareholders, so on and so forth. In addition, to initial listing requirements all national exchanges maintain ongoing listing requirements and corporate governance standards which must be satisfied.

Rules of eligibility that a corporation must meet before its stock can be listed for trading on an exchange. Each exchange has different requirements--the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) being one of the stringent. Some of the NYSE's requirements are that a corporation must have: * At least 1,100,000 shares publicly held with a minimum market value of $18 million; * A minimum of 2,000 round lot shareholders or a total of 2,200 shareholders and; * A minimum pretax annual net income of at least $2.5 million. See: Market Price; New York Stock Exchange; Round Lot